Dimensional Adventrues: Escape From Aincrad
by Devin and Samantha
Summary: While testing out a sort of mind jump machine, Devin and Samantha get thrown into the year 2022 and are trapped within Sword Art Online. Now they must play in order to save their future kids and, in Devin's case, meet someone that is important to how this World Line plays out.
1. Chapter 1

**Author's Notes:** I am in the process of updating my earlier chapters due to coming up with new ideas as I was writing the fourth chapter.

* * *

 **Chapter 1: Let the game begin (Devin)**

When I woke up the morning of November 6th 2015, I did not expect to be trapped within a game and forced to fight to survive and escape. All I knew was my good friend Samantha was going to be unveiling her invention that had taken about two months in order to complete. I walked into my basement, avoiding the mess my sisters had made, and approached the back wall cautiously. Upon doing so, I pulled a remote out of my pocket and pressed the big red button on it. Suddenly, the wall in front of me began to crack. The wall where the crack appeared split open to reveal a vortex, which I then entered. A whirlwind of color flew by me as I was pulled through the vortex towards its end.

After exiting the vortex I was in a large, rectangular, room with walls that were an incredibly bright white...

...Hold on one moment, I noticed that I haven't introduced myself yet. However, instead of giving you a brief explanation of who I am, I am going give you a detailed description of myself.

* * *

 **Name: Devin S. Langelier  
** **Alias: Sam James  
Age: 15  
Gender: Male  
Personality: Smart, Creative, Strategic (Sometimes)  
Info: His life seems to lead in two different directions. One is his normal life, while the other is whenever he is on an adventure with Samantha/  
Other Info: Samantha is his, in basic terms, him from another version of reality, also known by some as a World Line, and tries to let as few people in his World Line as possible know this by using titles like "sister" or "cousin."**

Oh yes! Before I forget here is some info on Sam and what she is like...

 **Name: Samantha D. Langelier  
Alias: Alex James  
** **Age: 15  
Gender: Female  
Personality: Smart, Creative, Strategic, and a bit short-tempered  
Info: Her life is always filled with insane adventures, that usually begin with her slight mistakes and miscalculations, and usually involve Devin in one way or another. Sam is someone you do not want to anger under any circumstances. If you do, RUN FOR YOUR LIFE! She has a tendency to burst into flames when this occurs.  
Signs of Anger: It begins with her eyes turning red and glowing a bit. Her hair then begins to turn a shade of dark red, and also begins to glow. If not calmed down around this time, she will then burst into flames and attack whatever is closest to her. The reason this reaction occurs is unknown.**

* * *

As the vortex disappeared behind me, a mix of sweat and some kind of oil filled my nostrils, and I noticed a set of blueprints on the giant monitor of Sam's computer. Just because I think you might need a little more setting explanation the room has a computer with a giant monitor in the corner farthest from a staircase leading up to the main floor of her house, where I currently was standing. The rest of the room is usually filled with Sam's countless inventions on display.

The white walls, normally really clean, seemed to have burn marks on them. In the center of the room was something being covered by a large tarp. I was going to look at what was beneath it, but Sam ran in and stopped dead in her tracks in front of me.

"Good to see you!" Sam exclaimed to me, sounding much more excited than usual, while crossing to the tarp and removing it. Underneath it was a table with two odd, yet familiar, looking helmets on top of it.

"Quick question," I began, walking up to the table behind her, "What exactly are these?".

"I can answer that easily." She answered, picking up one of the helmets, "These are a kind of memory storage device, which extracts your memories into it and replaces them into the head of someone of your bloodline after a time set by the wearer. Also, just so you know, Jamie will be joining us."

* * *

 **Name: Jamie A. Hadden  
Alias: Olivia Denning  
Age: 14  
Gender: Female  
Personality: Loner, (Usually) Friendly  
Info: Jamie is a good friend of Samantha and will do anything to keep her alive and well. This is because when they met Sam had fought off a pack of wolves that were closing in on Jamie while she was walking through the woods one day. Jamie then said she would stick with Sam until the day that she needed to do the same for her. Not too long after that Samantha had talked Jamie into being a test subject for her most recent experiment.  
Other Info: The experiment stated above involved Sam mixing Jamie's DNA, with that of a wolf to see if Jamie would be turned into some form of werewolf. Surprisingly the experiment gave her the powers of a werewolf, but she was able to control her actions within this form. This is a term Samantha coined a Half-Blood werewolf.**

* * *

"Why are you just letting me know now?!" I exclaim to her as I hear the sound of loud footsteps behind me and saw Jamie coming down. Jamie is a year younger than us, but is actually a bit taller which feels kind of odd. Of course I am older than a friend of mine by a few months, and he is taller than me so I can't complain too much. I notice her nails slowly transforming back to their normal state, as well as a bit of hair receding from her hands. Meaning she must have transformed into her wolf form, and back to her normal form, at one point before heading down here.

"What happened?" Sam asked as Jamie walked up to us with a nonchalant expression on her face.

"I may have attacked your cat Sam." Jamie replied, looking ashamed of her actions.

"Again? Really? You need to quit attacking her when she hisses at you!" Sam exclaimed, trying to turn our attention to the experiment.

"Well she needs to learn not to aggravate me, or she has it coming!" Jamie counters as she tries to keep calm.

"So why exactly are you here?" I asked Sam, starting to think of how it took Samantha only two months to build these helmets.

I just noticed how little I talked of our appearance so I'm going to do that now. Jamie has brown hair and green eyes and normally wears long sleeves and pants due to hair that would make her look less than normal. Samantha has dirty-blonde hair, which she chooses to dye red for some odd reason, and blue eyes and usually has a sensible style to the way she dresses and will wear a labcoat and glasses when in the lab. However, when on any adventure she dresses in an almost normal fashion of jeans, a t-shirt, and an old pair of sneakers. One more thing about her clothing style, she will never wear a dress, skirt, or heels of any kind unless in disguise, or if under some kind of influence. Funny story, I once made a bet with Sam where she had to wear a dress, of course I won, and she was pissed at me after that happened.

Now on to me, I also have dirty-blonde hair and blue eyes. I like to keep my hair long, about to my shoulders, and I can usually be seen wearing sweatpants and a sweatshirt. I don't really have any clothing guidelines like the other two, other then the whole sweatshirt thing unless in summer, so that's about it.

Where was I? Oh right!

"It's simple really," Jamie began walking towards me, and placing her hand on my shoulder, "She needed someone to monitor you two while you were out, and I was happy to do so.". Jamie began to examine the helmet, checking for anything that seemed the least bit odd, and when she found nothing mentioned that, "You never know if Sam missed something."

"So where are we going to?" I asked Sam, getting back to the subject at hand.

"Probably enough to place into the bodies of our descendants because I am unsure of how far we are able to travel." she answered picking up one of the helmets and turns a dial on the side that sets the year. "All we have to do is place it on our heads, set it, and turn it on not in that order." Sam continued after setting the year quite far into the future and placing it on her head. Jamie sat down at the computer and I sat in a seat next to Sam, set, and then activated the helmet.

* * *

Everything went black and I felt like I was falling slowly towards a ground that didn't exist. Suddenly I actually was falling, almost off a cliff, when I suddenly gained control of my body and made sure not to fall off the edge. Looking around I saw a field spread in front of me with the cliff right behind me. Then, out of nowhere, a boar suddenly began charging at me and pushed me a good few feet away from where I previously stood. Just now noticing the sword in my hand I began to slash at the boar until, for some odd reason, it burst into a bright light and disappeared.

I then noticed a town not too far from where I was and ran into it. Upon entering the town, I began to notice a few very odd things that I did not notice when I first arrived. First off, there was music playing that changed as I entered the town. Second, I noticed a weird GUI out of the corner of my left eye with a health bar and level, as well as the name Alex to the left of the health bar. Next, I had accidentally opened a menu by moving my hand in a downward motion. On the menu I looked at all the stats, items, and skills that I had just as a message popped up on my screen...

 _To: Alex  
_ _From: Dax  
_ _Subject: Are you alright?  
Hey sis, sorry that I'm a bit busy in town. Are you alright by the way?  
I saw that you took a large amount of damage, and thought that you  
might need a bit of help. So, if you need it, let me know and I can  
help you out with fighting because of my experience in the beta of SAO._

...The first thing to catch my eye was that he said "sis" which made me notice, for some reason just now, that I was a girl. Another thing, that also had to do with that statement was that he called me his sister, meaning I must be related to him. I had decided to send a message back to him, telling him I'm okay...

 _To: Dax  
_ _From: Alex  
Subject: No need to worry  
Don't worry, I'm perfectly fine and I think I can handle myself. Thanks  
for the offer though. I just got into a town so I should be fine._

Just as I sent the message, something else sank in. He had said SAO, meaning Sword Art Online, which is an anime where people are trapped within a game where they cannot escape. I then started wondering how I could be within this death game. My next question was why, even if we set it for a year more than ten years into the future, we were in SAO which takes places in 2022. Just then two girls ran past me and toppled me over. Standing up, I chased after them as my head began to flood with the memories of whoever I was. I began to see memories of her parents, and noticed that I happened to be this girl's father but was unable to recognize who her mother was. I also recognized the two girls that had pushed me aside. The one on the left was Sam's daughter Erica, but in this case it was Sam herself, and the one on the right was Jamie's daughter.

"Hey!" I yelled to the other two as I caught up to them, "Why the hell did you push me over!". They turned to see me and took a second to exchange glances before Sam answered.

"Devin? Perfect! I located you much faster than I could have imagined." She exclaimed as she pulled me and Jamie's daughter, her name is Emily by the way, a good distance away before saying another word. "What exactly do you occurred to land us here?" She asked me as soon as we were out of earshot of anyone.

"How should I know, all I remember is turning on the helmet, and then waking up about to fall off the edge of a cliff." I answered, wondering why she thought I would have any idea. We took a few minutes to ponder what could have caused all of this, but ended up drawing a blank. "Also," I continued with another question to ask Sam, "how are we in 2022 when we had set the helmets much farther ahead?".

This stumped Sam and made her take a while to think, but was unable to come up with an answer to that question either.

Suddenly, along with the tolling of a bell, there was a large flash of light and we were teleported into, what looked like, the center of town.

We all began trying to figure what it was that just happened, when something that looked like a force field appeared in the sky with the words "System Message" showing within each hexagon-shaped panel of the force field. Everyone went silent as something that looked like blood dripped down through the force field and formed a giant empty cloak with hands floating above the ground.


	2. Chapter 2

**Chapter 2: So... How's Life?**

 **(Samantha's POV)**

After activating the helmet, all I was able to see for a solid minute was darkness. Also, I had the feeling as if I was falling slowly to the ground. When I opened my eyes, the face of a girl was staring back at me.

"Erica? Are you alright?" the girl asked as she reached down to help me up.

"Actually," I started to say, making an attempt at being funny, "I am mostly left but I think I'm okay.". We both laughed at the joke while walking towards an area to sit so that I could recover from what just happened.

"Are you alright? Is something wrong?" the girl, her name is Emily by the way, questioned as we stood up and walked down the street where I had, apparently, suddenly collapsed.

* * *

 **Name: Emily C. Hadden  
** **Alias: N/A  
** **Age: 15  
** **Gender: Female  
** **Personality: Unknown  
Info: Daughter of Jamie Hadden.  
Other Info: May posses half-blood powers.**

* * *

"Well," I started hesitantly, "I need to find Alex, there's something important I need to tell her.".

"Well, I think I saw her out in the field." She stated, taking an actual interest in the conversation, as she started to speed up. We started running towards the field, where players were fighting off boars to level, and began looking around until...

"Hey," the voice of a girl screamed behind us. Turning around, we saw that it was Devin's daughter Alex who continued to complain, "Why the hell did you push me over?".

"Devin? Perfect! I located you much faster than I could have imagined." I exclaimed as I pulled him, I guess technically her, and Emily out of earshot of other players and tried to see if Devin knew what was going on.

"How should I know," He stated, looking like he wanted to slap me, "all I remember is turning on the helmet, and then waking up about to fall off the edge of a cliff.". We took a few minutes to try to figure out what had happened, but were unable to find an answer. As we continued to ponder this, along with how our 14 and 15 year old kids are in 2022, when a bright light surrounded us and we were teleported to the center of the starting town.

After taking a few minutes to discuss what was going on, a large figure appeared before us, and spoke the following statement...

"Attention, players. Welcome to my world. My name is Kayaba Akihiko. As of this moment, I am the sole person who can control this world. I'm sure you've already noticed, that the logout button is missing from the main menu. But this is not a defect in the game…I repeat..this is not a defect in the game. It is a feature of Sword Art Online. You cannot log out of SAO yourselves. And no one on the outside can shut down or remove the NerveGear. Should this be attempted the transmitter inside the NerveGear will emit a powerful microwave, destroying your brain and thus ending your life. Unfortunately, several players' friends and families have ignored this warning and have attempted to remove the NerveGear. As a result, two hundred and thirteen players Are gone forever, from both Aincrad and the real world. As you can see, news organizations across the world, are reporting all of this, including the deaths. Thus, you can assume that the danger, of a NerveGear being removed is no minimal. I hope you will relax and attempt to clear the game. But I want you to remember this clearly. There is no longer any method to revive someone within the game. If your HP drops to zero, your avatar will be forever lost. and simultaneously the NerveGear will destroy your brain. There is only one means of escape. To complete the game. You are presently on the lowest floor of Aincrad, Floor 1. If you make your way through the dungeon and defeat the Floor Boss, you may advance to the next level. Defeat the boss on Floor 100, and you will clear the game. Finally, I've added a present from to your item storage. Please see for yourself."

Upon hearing this, everyone opened their inventories to see what was there. In there was a mirror, which I pulled from my inventory and saw my daughter's avatar. It looked exactly like me, I wondered both how and why this was possible, but Emily didn't question it so it must have already been like this. Suddenly, everyone became engulfed in the same bright light as before, and when it cleared, everyone looked different. Looking in the mirror, I saw what my daughter actually looked like. She was normal height for her age with brown hair and eyes to match.

We continued trying to figure out what was going on when I thought of something, "Devin, do you think we could get ahold of Jamie?"

We then remembered that Emily had been with us this entire time, and had not said a thing. We looked over to her and she said, "My mom did say to tell you two something after we ended up here.". We both looked to each other, then to her with looks of confusion.

"Well, what is it?" I asked her as I continued to try and figure out why it was we were here.

"She said to tell you that the line's always open, whatever she means by that." Emily stated, while Devin and I continued giving her confused looks.

"Wait!" I exclaimed, as I opened my menu, "I know exactly what she means!". I began to scroll through menu upon menu until I found it, not sure how but I did, a way of calling the lab. I called the number and, after a few tries, guess who it was that picked up?

"Hello?" Rang a familiar voice in my ear, as the cloaked figure continued to ramble on about whatever it was he was talking about, "Samantha, you there? I'm trying my best to keep the connection up.".

"Yeah. What the hell happened?" I asked her while Emily was a bit confused as to what was going on.

"I have been trying to figure that out myself." Jamie exclaimed, sounding very happy to be talking to me, "I'm surprised you were able to call the lab at all."

We continued to talk back and forth while Devin and Emily gave me looks of disbelief. Also, since he was paying more attention than I was, Devin will continue the POV for the rest of this particular scene...

* * *

 **(Devin's POV)**

Upon pulling the mirror out of our inventories, we all became engulfed in the same bright light as the one from when we were teleported here. When the light faded, I looked into the mirror and saw how my daughter actually looked. She has long, I mean incredibly long, dirty-blonde hair with bluish-pink eyes. She didn't look like the weakest person I've ever seen, but she didn't look exactly strong either. She seems more like me that way.

Kayaba then continued with explaining about why we were trapped...

"Right now, you're probably wondering, 'why'. Why would Kayaba Akihiko, developer of Sword Art Online and the Nerve Gear, do all this? My goal has already been achieved. I created Sword Art Online for one reason. To create this world and intervene in it. And now, it is complete. This ends the tutorial for the official Sword Art Online Launch. Good luck players."

...Kayaba then disappeared and left us to endure the hell of this world. Everyone began freaking out as Emily, Sam, and I began to try to get out of town as soon as possible. However, we were chased by Alex's brother.

"Where are you three going?" He shouted through the crowds to us, "I think we should stick together!". We tried our best to ignore him and ran out into the field, fighting whatever came our way so we could gain more EXP.

After fighting off a large amount of boars, and a fair few wolves, we entered into the next town we ran into. The reason we were randomly trying to find a town was because none of us had any idea where we were headed. As we came close to the town a black-haired boy ran past, a sword that Alex's brother told her about that came from a quest at his side, seeming to be in some kind of rush. Upon entering the town the music became calm again, we saw a group of three talking about the sword I mentioned earlier before heading off farther into the town, and everything just became really serene and peaceful.

"So, this was fun, let's get out of this damn game!" I exclaimed before waiting for Sam to do something to get us out of here.

"Well," Sam began, sounding a bit ashamed of what she was about to tell me, "you see, escape is kind of impossible.".

"What do you mean we can't get out of here?" I questioned, a hint of anger in my voice, "I mean it's our kid's fault for entering, they can make their way out alone, we don't need to be stuck because of their mistakes!".

"That's the problem," Sam stated in a shy voice, "We can't get out because we are in the bodies of our children.". She began explaining to me why it is we are unable to leave, "When we first entered, our brains became linked with the brains of our kids, so we would activate the system that fries your brain if we were to attempt to leave.". We then decided that there was no other choice, and that we needed to play through the whole game, floors 1-75 due to what happens in the anime, without dying unless we wanted to kill our own kids. Once that was out of the way we explained to Emily the situation a bit better what was going on and she told us that she knew who we were and that she was here as an ally to us.

"So," I stated, yawning a bit as I spoke, "where do we start?". We had decided to rent rooms at the inn for tonight, and think about what to do in the morning.

* * *

 **(Emily's POV)**

I woke the next morning, getting very little sleep in the first place, to hear two people arguing with one another in the hallway. Opening my door I saw "Alex" and "Erica" fighting about who would be the person leading the party. I say "Alex" and "Erica" because in actuality they were their parents Devin and Samantha from the year 2015 trapped within the bodies of Alex and Erica. When they noticed me standing there watching them, and laughing at them a bit, they stopped and looked over at me.

"So," Sam said, seeming to be scanning me with her eyes, "how did you sleep?". I took a moment to answer because I was unsure if I even slept last night at all.

"I slept great." I lied, trying to smile at least a bit, before motioning for them to come into my room.

"That makes one of us." Devin muttered under his, technically her breath as (s)he and Erica entered the room.

"Listen," I began, taking a seat on the bed while the other two sat on either side of me, "you two can't say anything about you being your own parents in public okay?". They both took a moment to exchange looks before I exclaimed, "Even if it's true, people will think you're insane, and don't forget to use your screen names!". Just so you know, Erica's screen name was Madalyn just in case I use at some point.

We all had made the decision to create a party in which I was the leader, because the other two would not stop fighting about which of them should be leader, and we headed out of the room to start off the day. "We should probably eat something." I suggested as we went down into the main area of the inn, thinking of what we should do next.

"So," Samantha began, in the midst of our meal, "What's the plan Em?". I gave her a look of utter annoyance, and giving a subtle cough to make a point, which made her understand what my problem was. "Fine. What's the plan _Fidelity_?" She restated, giving me a look that made me scared that she might actually kill me if I do something like that again, "Because I feel we should try to fight some of the higher level monsters.".

"I think that's a great idea Madalyn, if we want to ourselves killed." I stated, while trying not think about how I wasn't actually eating anything, "But since it's only the second day, we should continue with what we have been doing and, we should slowly work our way up to the harder monsters.". Erica sat back, crossing her arms as she did so, and continued to give me that death glare.

Deciding that my plan would be the safest, while the other two got used to the game's controls, and we headed out of town towards the field. We began fighting off a few wolves, which was a bit difficult, before we ran into Alex's brother Devin again. I'll call him by his screen name, which is Dax, in order to avoid any kind of confusion. He came running towards us, once he had noticed that we were here, and was attempting to avoid some of the wolves as he reached us.

"You guys are okay!" Dax exclaimed, stopping in front of us, "I thought when you guys left you might not make it here.". All three of us exchanged looks of confusion before turning to him.

"What do you mean 'not make it'?" Devin questioned as we headed back into town with him.

"You didn't really have any idea of where you were going, so I thought that you were not going to make it is all." Dax answered stopping at a quest giver. We continued to complain to him about how, just because we aren't beta testers doesn't mean we don't know what we're doing. After a while, we were fed up with Dax trying to explain how he knows more about this game than all three of us combined. So we just left him alone and went back to fighting more wolves. As the sun began to go down, we headed back to the inn for some dinner.

"Today went well," Sam stated, taking a sip of her drink, "not including the whole thing with Dax that is.". We all became silent for a few minutes after that, until Devin decided to speak up.

"He's just a bit of an asshole sometimes, even at home, trust me." He explained taking a bite out of the sandwich he had been eating.

"Hang on a moment," Erica interrupted, her face in a bit of shock, "how would you know about how Alex's brother is at home?". This was confusing because, if you had forgotten about it already, Alex was actually a 15 version of her father Devin.

We continued to ponder about this for a while, until we heard a commotion outside and went out to see what was going on.

Upon heading outside of the door to the inn there was a cluster of people, which we were able to get through, and saw two people about to duel against each other. Above the two reads "Klaus VS. Alshep" which I am guessing are their screen names. The duel was interesting, but nothing really to talk about. Afterwards, all three of us went back to our rooms for the night and went to bed.

* * *

 **Author's Notes:** I hope anyone who read this chapter did enjoy it, and will continue to read as time goes on. Also, I added one or two references to a certain SAO story that I am reading so there's that.


	3. Chapter 3

**Chapter 3: The One the Outside/A Strange Realization**

 **(Jamie's POV)**

"It's simple really," I started walking towards Devin, and placing my hand on his shoulder, "She needed someone to monitor you two while you were out, and I was happy to do so.". I walked to the helmets and began to examine them, looking to find anything. "You never know if Sam missed something." I explained after not finding anything of interest.

"So where are we going to?" Devin asked, trying to get us back on track.

"Probably enough to place us into the bodies of our descendants because I am unsure of how far we are able to travel." Sam answered picking up one of the helmets and turned one of the dials on the side that, I guess, sets the year. "All we have to do is place it on our heads, set it, and turn it on not in that order." Sam continued after setting the year quite far into the future and placing it on her head. I sat at the computer and gave a thumbs up as Sam and Devin placed the helmets on their heads and went still.

As soon as they went still, an error appeared on screen...

 **ERROR:**

 **CONNECTION LOST.**

 **ACTIVATING EMERGENCY PLAN #155**

Suddenly I heard a loud whirring before being thrown across the room as it was sent out of the time vortex to somewhere in between World Lines...

I awoke a few hours later, due to passing out, to the sound of the lab phone ringing and slowly got up to pick it up. As soon as I picked up it seemed to hang up before I could say anything. I tried to search the computer for the issue and learned that I was being stopped by some sort of wall. The next time the phone rang I picked up and began rapidly typing code to make sure this conversation wouldn't end prematurely.

"Hello?" I exclaimed, trying to deal with a slight crick in my neck, "Samantha, you there? I'm trying my best to keep the connection up.".

"Yeah. What the hell happened?" She asked, seeming to look to me for help. I didn't want her to worry about my situation so I decided to act like I had been dealing with hers.

"I have been trying to figure that out myself." I lied, my tone of voice changing to sound like I was relieved, "I'm surprised you were able to call the lab at all."

"Why exactly is that?" Sam questioned as there began to be interference that made me have to work harder to keep the signal, someone obviously wanted me out of there. Of course I was able to hold them off easily and went back to my other problem. I decided that I would at least let her know what happened to the lab, while still not telling her I had passed out.

"Well, some sort of error occurred and then it felt like the lab was violently thrown from where it was." I explained to her, trying my best to get my thoughts together of the situation. As we continued to talk, the people trying to stop me got more powerful until I was cut off completely. I then focused completely on trying to break through this barrier, but was unable get through the system and get ahold of Samantha. I then heard the sound of someone walking down the stairs leading to the lab. I stopped typing and got up, slowly walking towards the staircase, and beginning to change into my wolf form. As I changed I began to move faster until I tackled the person just as they reached the bottom of the stairs.

"Would you get off me you large dog, I'm here to help." She exclaimed, doing well at holding me back. I did so and she got up, brushed herself off, and began to explain the situation. "You see," The girl began to say, walking towards the computer, "this building has been pulled out of the time vortex in order to stop time within the building and, by extension, stop the people within the building from aging."

"You think I will believe a story like that?" I stated, laughing as I did so, "Who to told you I would believe that?"

"Seriously? You told me you'd know the precise amount of crazy you'd be willing to swallow!" She exclaimed before motioning for me to follow her. Reluctantly, I followed her up the stairs to see that the door to the time machine was in front of me.

"Okay. You've got my attention. How are you trying to help?" I sighed as we went back down the stairs. Without saying another word the girl walked to the computer and began typing line upon line of code until we were able to get complete access into the systems of Argus. For those who don't know Argus are the creators of SAO. As she was leaving I thought I might as well ask the name of the person who helped me.

"Jessie. I was, or will be, the assistant of Sam to do these kinds of things." She stated as she went up the stairs back to the machine.

"What do you mean by 'was'?" I asked her. She stopped in her tracks and slowly turned to me.

"I'd rather not say because future events and all that." She then turned and ran up the stairs as fast as she could before rushing into the time machine and taking off before I could stop her. After she took off all that was left behind was a wall where the door should be. I trudged back down the stairs thinking about whether there was any chance I would be talking to her again. I then realized that I had not looked at Devin and Sam's vital signs since they turned on the helmets. I went to check them and I noticed something odd going on with their brains as if parts of them were being overwritten. I decided it best to call Sam and report my findings.

"So what you're saying is there are issues with our cerebral cortexes that are causing them to begin to morph?" Sam asked, making me take a minute to process what she said, and I agreed. "Will these differences start to become apparent any time soon?" She then questioned.

"You, Emily, or Devin may not notice anything but if we talk often enough I may notice some of these changes." I answered before I moved on to giving her Devin's mental state. I hoped that these changes would start slow and only begin to speed up over time, but the next day Sam called and I already noticed a significant difference.

"Hey Jamie, how's it going?" She said. You may not see much wrong with this, but then you don't understand the issue. If you haven't noticed, Sam usually speaks using words to show her intelligence. However, that changed after she went through Aincrad and she may never be the way she used to be. We had a basically normal conversation before Sam heard a knock at the door and hung up. We then talked almost every day and I continuously checked the brains of the two of them, and found nothing. A month passed before the next big change occurred.

* * *

 **(Samantha's POV)**

It had been a month since Devin and I first entered Aincrad, as well as Sword Art Online, and we had mostly adjusted to living within it. Devin, of course, was still having a bit of trouble getting used to his situation, but I think he was not having too many problems with it at that point. Also, not long after we had pretty much shunned him we did make up with Dax and were able to use him as a good ally. We hadn't explained to him about who Devin and I really were, but we were able to act like Alex and Erica when we needed to.

After a long day of training, we went back to rest at the inn once again, I called up Jamie like I did basically every day to chat.

"Everything is going pretty well on my end." Jamie answered to my question about what was going on with her, "There also have been no significant changes other than your manner of speaking.". We kind of just talked back and forth like this for a while before Devin cut us off, saying that there was a quest that we could do that would give us a bit more col for the materials for the sword he told me he would make for me. So we went out and did the quest, and Devin crafted my sword and gave it to me.

"You know," Emily started to say while I admired my new sword, "someone had said something about looking for the boss room recently, and that there would be a meeting for it.". She told us that we should go see what it was about. After we disagreed she walked off, a bit pissed, and we were unable to find her in the morning.

We figured that she went to the meeting she had explained about last night, and took a walk down to where it was taking place. When we got there, we saw her sitting in the very back and, she noticed us and motioned for us to come sit down next to her. We, hesitantly, decided that we might as well listen to this especially if we were planning to fight the boss. After apologizing, we began to listen what the person hosting the meeting had to say. It was boring really, all he talked about was how they were looking for the boss room and blah... blah... blah... that was all I heard before I couldn't stand it any longer and went to fight some wolves.

I entered town late that afternoon when the sun began setting. As soon as I got to the inn, I saw the less than excited faces of Devin and Emily staring at me from the table we usually sit at. I hesitantly sat down at the table with them, foreseeing the worst, and Devin took a deep breath and sighed.

"You know," Devin began, putting his hand to his head like he was getting a headache, "You could at least try not to walk away when something important is going on.".

"I'm sorry about leaving you guys," I apologized, actually showing a bit of emotion, "I understand how much this whole thing means to you two, and I will try much harder tomorrow.".

"Great," Emily exclaimed, going from being intense to being overjoyed, "because there is another meeting tomorrow!". I just had noticed that they had tricked me into saying that by making me feel bad, awesome job, which sort of angered me. We went to bed not too long after that, after having a bite to eat, but I took a moment to think about how easily I had been tricked.

I decided to call up Jamie for a short chat about what just happened. "Wait," Jamie interrupted as I was talking, a stern tone in her voice, "That really is odd. I think we have another change."

"I'm such an idiot. I can't believe I screwed up this much." I stated, then I realized what was going on. I usually show little care for any of my mistakes and show little emotion in general. Now I was close to tears over one small miscalculation that happened about a month ago. "I can't believe I never noticed this before!" I exclaimed as I hung up, left the room, and went to wake Emily and Devin up to tell them about the situation. I went downstairs and called Jamie again. There were a lot less people downstairs in the middle of the night, but there were people down here for drinks late at night. After a few minutes, the other two groggily came down the stairs and sat down.

"So, what is all this about?" Devin asked, sounding a bit pissed at me for waking him, "Because we do need to get up early tomorrow and, unlike you, we need sleep.". I shot him a look that showed that he should sit down or I would keep him up every night until we got out of here. They both sat down and I explained the situation.

"What this is about..." I began, making it so we could both hear and see Jamie clearly, "has to do with something Jamie and I noticed when we were talking a minute or so ago.". I had Jamie explain, most of, our conversation including when she had noticed that I wasn't acting right.

"Are you trying to say," Emily interrupted, trying to piece together the situation, "that you are slowly, mentally that is, turning into your kids?". I nodded and asked Jamie if she could attempt to try to figure what is causing this in the first place.

"Look I am unsure how large of an effect this will have on the two of us. So I need you, Emily, to help monitor our behavior." I whispered to them as I stood up in an attempt of a cool exit before Devin grabbed my arm stopping me. "REALLY?!" I exclaimed, beginning to heat up, as I turned and quickly ran upstairs to keep myself from killing anyone. My anger issues hadn't been affected yet.

I went into my room and decided to just go to bed and hope to god that this may have just been me. Sadly when I woke the next morning I began to notice Devin having different personality traits as well as continuously saying Erica then Sam then finally just saying my screen name when trying to get my attention. This would be the last time I would be able to notice differences.

We went to the meeting about the boss raid and were separated into groups. There were seven total groups that were split among three criteria. These were Tanks, groups A and B, high movement assault, groups C-E, and long weapon support, groups F and G, and the three of us had ended up being placed in group D. We were given the rest of the day off after that and just decided to walk around town and talk to each other. We did this for some time, but not really about much, until it began to get late and we made our way back to the inn. However, before we could go to bed, I stopped the other two and came up with an idea.

"You want to what?!" Emily exclaimed stopping as she had already started climbing up the stairs.

"I say we do some testing to see what other changes occur between Devin and I and then drink a whole bunch of coffee to be ready to battle!" I replied cheerily, already a change, as I pulled her back down and purchased the first of many coffees that we drank throughout the night while looking for changes in behavior, personality, or just something basic like how we stood when idle. I even called Jamie for help with noticing these changes, she actually doesn't sleep very much, and we did get a good amount of data and were able to make a timeline of how rapid these changes were. Just before I ended the call with Jamie, she gave some interesting information that she found on her side.

She told us that this was occurring because of a miscalculation I made which was causing us to slowly become them, personality wise, with no way to reverse it unless it was acted upon before the final change was complete. I told the other two to get some rest while Jamie and I tried to work out a way to stop this process from continuing. At one point I must have passed out and woke up the next morning with a bucket of water dumped onto my head. I jolted up, attempted to pull out my weapon, and stood up to face who it was that attacked me.

"That was for making me stay up until midnight." Devin stated, setting the bucket down on the table next to him, and deciding to help me dry off. Not too much later, Emily came down and the three of us went in the direction of the fountain within the plaza of the town. We had arrived early and very few people were there and I decided to try to talk to some of the other players. I met three people, two who I didn't find interesting however the third reminded me of a friend I had back outside the game.

Others began to arrive, so I joined Devin and Emily once again as Diavel, the one leading this whole operation, stood up on the fountain and began to speak with all of us.

"Everyone, although it may be sudden-thank you! Just now, all forty-four party members have gathered here, without a single person missing!" He exclaimed to us all causing me to think to myself, "So?" as everyone around me began to clap. Why was it so amazing that everyone was here, it's not like we had anything else to do today that would stop us from fighting. He said a bunch of other boring motivational stuff that I decided to block out. After, we all started to head in the direction of the dungeon. It took us a few hours to both reach the dungeon and reach the top. I then realized that I had never been this high into the dungeon before.

Of course I had been IN the dungeon before, but never this high up. For a minute I was scared, but then a thought crossed my mind. I have no reason to worry because I know what I'm doing so there should not be a problem. Each of the parties were lined up and Diavel raised his long-sword high, and all of us did so as well, turned, and pushed open the doors. He stepped into the large room torches began to light around the entire room and, as the brightness rose, we saw a large figure sitting in a throne at the end of the room...

 ** _Illfang the Kobold Lord..._**


End file.
